Guess wot i got??? A FECKING GREAT BIG DLS A7!!!!
As im sure you can all apreciate, im rather happy with it to say the least. Im gonna install it in the next hour or so, but would like an idea of where to start with regards to xover points on the tweeters and bandpass on the mids....
any help greatly appreciated!!

Jamie :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

I want it give it to me LOL sounds cool mate well good luck instalign it i aint got a clue ask the experts <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> I installed my own but not to sure about cross overs etc.

main q is were are the tweeter and were are the mids mounted?

if for example the mids are in the doors or kicks and the tweeters in the dash/mirror place then
5Khz up for tweeters or you will here voices move between the mid and tweeters.
mids will be 5Hz down
not sure what else you have up front but try the mids from 80 to 125 hz up as a stricked band to band crossover from rear sub to front components is not always the way to go. use the crossover to counteract the effect of cabin gain in the midbass frequencys of between 80 and 125Hz.

also were did you buy your A7 from?

Jamie, do you know the paremeters fro the various drive untis you're using ?

As a general rule, tweeters and mids tend to be crossde over an octave above their resonant frequency.

So a tweeter with say an FS of 1.6K would be crossed at 3.2K - assuming a 12dB slope. Can be moved either way and steeper slopes allow for even greater flexibility, though often at the risk of poor integration between the drive units unless keen experimentation is used.

Most tweeters will be fine at 3.5 K and mids at around 800Hz, this will keep most of the crossover activity away from the vocal area where discrepencies can be most noticeable.

Paul

If you're running a tuned piece of kit, I suggest using this as a starting point.

For the frequencies perfectly in tune with 25Hz:-

25.956 Hz is a G sharp at the bottom of a piano keyboard. If you go up in octaves you get these results

+ 1 octave 51.913 Hz
+ 2 octaves 103.82 Hz
+ 3 octaves 207.650 Hz
+ 4 octaves 415.310 Hz
+ 5 octaves 830.610 Hz
+ 6 octaves 1661.2 Hz
+ 7 octaves 3322.4 Hz
+ 8 octaves 6644.9 Hz
+ 9 octaves 13289.8 Hz

Defining the band pass for the mid range, should be done using, from the results above, a lower limit equal to the top limit of your sub channel and an upper limit equal to the cut off point for your tweeters.
Eg:-
Sub 25Hz-103Hz
Mid range Bpass 103Hz-6644.9Hz
Tweeter cut off 6644.9Hz Making all frequencies above this audible.

Use this as a guide line but please use your own personal taste and ears. I doubt the amp will be as accurate as this but use the nearest frequency you can get.

This way the tuned Crystal will sound awsome against the other speakers.

Hope this helps

NbutD
'Live young and Proper' :D

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by NbutD:
<strong>

Mid range Bpass 103Hz-6644.9Hz

</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Dude you planning on using 3" mids or what? :D

Jamie, the crossover points in your system will depend on the size of your speakers, the power you have, the way you have them mounted and where they are located/angled.

Nice amp btw. :)

:cool:

i recently tried going fully active but found the components overpower the sub at higher volumes even though the hu is supposed to auto calibrate levels and the built in equaliser (pioneer dexp99)the sub level is set lower -11 fully active compared to -9 when running in normal mode

my system is fully active and have no problem at all with the gains at high or low volume
if the components are overpowering the sub at high volume then the gain structure in your car is wrong and needs altering
a good gain structure should keep everything
in place at low ,medium and high volume if it doesnt then it needs altering this should all be done off one control (master volume control)
you can see from the signature what the components in my car are we have not had a lot of time to play with settings and such but at the moment the crossovers are set at

sub-bass from 13hz-72hz
mid bass from 72hz-199hz
mid range from 199hz-3.5khz
tweeters from 3.5khz-20 khz
we have experimented with some of the crossover frequencys but found these to be pretty good

i have changed my system slightly
the sub is in the spare wheel well in a fibreglass enclosure of 1.5 cu ft
the 5" mid bass speakers are now in the kickwells
in a sealed enclosure with around 0.3cu ft
the 6" midrange are running free air in the door
the tweeters are at the bottom of the A pillars

we tried the tweeters in a few differant places but they sound brilliant where they are providing a nice high soundstage with lots of depth and width...

Genesis
I have a little suggestion for you, hope you don't mind. i have found out with my system and also mark turners alfa.
If the tweeters are crossed over lower than 5KHz you can get voices going from mid to tweeter. NOT GOOD.
A great song to show this is Dire straits track calling elvis you hear the lead singers voice move from mid to tweeter. I have found that 5KHz is the best setting if the tweeters are on the a-pillar and mid in the kicks or door area.

Hope this helps
Geoff.

we tried a higher crossover setting for the tweeters but if anything it made them sound too easy on the ear.they lost a lot of their magic and sparkle as most people know with focal speakers you have to push them a little to get them to perform also the mid is not at all happy at playing such high frequencys so we came to a compromise of 3.5 khz they will actually play a little lower around 2.8khz but thats really pushing them and at £400 each i wouldnt fancy popping one of them
once we have finished messing with the eq ill give it another go just to see if we get the same results though thnaks ballie...

No problem
Just thought id mension it as the problem of the sound moving from kick to dash was the resson i went fully active. As i did not want to sacrifice the better soundstage i got with the tweeters on the a-pillar by putting them back in kicks running lower frequecys. Im still amazed you moved the mids from the kicks to the doors as i thought that the 6W mid was not very good off axis but if it works in your car then thats all that counts.

the audiom 6w is actually designed to work off axis and free air so i probably wasnt doing it any favours bye placing it in a small sealed enclosure

Ballie, odd, I don't have that problem in my setup, images high up whatever the note, guess I'm lucky? :confused:

Genesis, I tried one of our Crystal CSC60s in place of my Rainbows and had similar problems with it not liking the enclosure or aiming in my setup, just left it with the Rainbows now. Any chance you'll be at ICe T6, I'd love to hear the system.

C

I really hope you guys were on night shift or something last night 3 and 5am posts <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />
Genesis,
i was just going by what i have been told about the 6W by many others, ive never used it myself so cannot say if i was told a pack of lies or not. I have used the TLRs (tried them in my system) before (installed them in a mates car, they were his) and they are fantastic just IMO not worth £800.
Mouser,
I did not have a problem with the imaging or soundstage with the tweeters on the a-pillars. It was just a small problem with voices moving from speaker to speaker on one or two certain tracks.
The resson i moved the tweeter from the kick was i had a 'rainbow' effect going on with them due to not been able to get the exact angle for the kicks correct, pedal layout etc.
try the dire straits track you will see what i meen about the voice moving.

depending on where t6 will be i might give it a go
i am from up north but travelling doesnt bother me
i will be at a few shows down south in the next few weeks
i will be at the avon park raceway and silverstone for the trax event
so anyone who wants a listen is welcome
audiom tlr,s are very expensive but i dont know of any other speaker that does what they do for car audio purposes so how much do you pay for in my opinion the best you can get.????????

well ive done it! i found that if they were crossed at 3.5k the tweeters seemed a little to hras. i moved it up to between 4-4.5k and it sounds much nicer. The improvement in midbass is amazing. much better response. Someone commented that when they tried fully active they found that the sub over powered the speakers. I dont have this problem at all, but i do have a remote bass dial with the amp which helps to get it just right...

Jamie :D

jamie if you are still using your kef speakers
try moving the crossover to around just under 5khz
as this is where they were they crossd over on many of the home speakers that kef produced using exactly the same drivers as what you have
i used to sell kef speakers many moons ago so have got a lot of experiance with them including owning several pairs

Jamie i agree with genesis
due to there small size they will probably sound better at 5KHz up.
Glad you like the amp and a fully active system. It may take time to dial in a fully active system but IMO it sounds better when done and its great fun fiddling with little setting to see what sounds best. My system now sounds far better than when passive :)

Is higher than 5K OK? Mine cross at 6.5K according to DLS. The mids are from 450Hz up.

I am using 2 Hex 10" subs and Dynaudio MW170 for mid bass. What frequency range should I run the sub and mid bass at? I am using the DLS crossover for the mid and tweet.

Simon

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by simon_wynne:
<strong>Is higher than 5K OK? Mine cross at 6.5K according to DLS. The mids are from 450Hz up.

I am using 2 Hex 10" subs and Dynaudio MW170 for mid bass. What frequency range should I run the sub and mid bass at? I am using the DLS crossover for the mid and tweet.

Simon</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The DLS are designed to run that high due to the midrange soft dome running upto that level. They work great at them frequencys too.
as for were to crossover the midbass/sub. Its best to experiment and see what you think. theres a lot of factors involved/car/driver mounting/responce etc. I would try frequencys from 50Hz to 90Hz.

Thanks again Ballie. I'm trying to set up the system theoritically as it is not installed. One problem with owning a 4XS is that I need loads of resistors to change each frequency!!!!!!

Simon

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by simon_wynne:
<strong>Thanks again Ballie. I'm trying to set up the system theoritically as it is not installed. One problem with owning a 4XS is that I need loads of resistors to change each frequency!!!!!!

Simon</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I would at first leave the 4XS out of cct and just play about with the crossovers in the soundstream amps. After you have the crossover frequency sounding right you and like then go back to the 4XS if you want and get the resistors to match.

i noticed the same things that a few people mentioned my tweeters sound too forward around 2-3khz but if you use a higher crossover point the sound loses its edge and becomes too smooth you then need to turn the volume up to compensate, what i dont understand is why the hu is upping the sub amps gain when using passives and two channels surely the components should be slightly louder when run off four channels and the passives removed from the system?

no it doesnt work like that if you have other
equipment in your car such as line drivers and the like each time you go through any component
it basically has a volume control on it
what you need to do is set the gains so everything sounds the same at low ,medium and high volume to do this you need to control everything from one control and no more bye putting your sub on another channel you are using a seperate volume control again try it straight through the normal rca leads not the non fade ones
gain structure is difficult to understand and even more difficult to get right but the time and effort are worth it

the sub channel isnt a non fading type, my hu has 3 rca outputs that run as a 3 way network in pro mode and 2 way using normal mode ie in pro mode the channels are bass mid and treble in normal mode its sub front and rear do you think i should reduce the amps gain on the tweeters?

have you had the vehicle on a r.t.a?
if you have it should give you some idea of where
your system is either lacking or being a little too plentifull
im not that up on the pioneer haed unit does it have some type of analysis with a microphone similar to the alpine ?
i would start like this disconnect the head unit from your amps and then by using an oscilloscope and using the proper test c.d you should see if your head unit output is clipping at all at full volume if it is then there will be a point where you cannot go beyond
next turn all the amplifier gains to zero make sure all the other electronics are off as well
no eq or bbe or any of that ****
measure each rca with the help of the oscilloscope and a voltmeter to see if they are all the same if they arent you will have to adjust the next link in the chain to get the same level
its basically the weakest link theory
go through your system until you find where and what is wrong
it could be that normally your tweeters are fine
but at a higher volume certain frequencys are being voiced louder than others

Jamie

I just thought you may like to see this. Its a copy of something Scott Buwalda wrote to me about setting up an active system. FYI Scott is the IASCA EXPERT SQ world champion with his nissan sx200 and his car is recconed to be one of the best sounding in the world. hes also an IASCA judge and a moderator on the carsound forum. This guy eats sleeps and breaths car audio. Hes a great guy to talk to.

Geoff,
When people are designing and tuning an audio system in a car, they too often forget the effect that the CAR'S INTERIOR will play into the equation. I can't tell you how many cars I have been asked to help tune with subs crossed over at 50 Hz, and the midbass bandpassed at 50 Hz. If our cars were anechoic or at best, semi-anechoic chambers, or of near infinite size, this would be just fine. But they're not. They're very small spaces, have reflective surfaces everywhere, and have their own tuning function.

Running subs 50Hz lowpass and midbass from 100Hz or so highpass.
Why will this work? It will work because the car's transfer function will probably make it work.

Take a 12" subwoofer for example. Put it in the trunk so that it is exciting the trunk's air space. Cross it over at 50 Hz at 36 dB/octave. Now, put it on an RTA. What are the chances that the difference between 50 Hz and 100 Hz will be 36 dB? (i.e. 50 Hz at 0 dB and 100 Hz at -36 dB). Highly unlikely, if not completely impossible inside the car. On the contrary, you'll find that the difference between 50 and 100 Hz will be more likely around 8 or 10 dB, maximum, and probably more like 6 or 7 dB.

Same thing for midbass drivers. If you cross over a midbass driver in the kick panels at 200 Hz at 36 dB/octave, what are the chances that at 100 Hz, the output will be at -36 dB. Not hardly likely. Once again, you'll find that you'll have a 4-6 dB, maximum, drop in amplitude from 6 1/2" midbass drivers in the kick panels.

Many don't understand this concept. Crossovers don't mean a freakin' thing until you have the speakers in the car.

I haven't used band to band crossovers in my car since 1996. There has always been at least some "notching" of the filter.

If you put a sub in the trunk at 50 Hz, and then bring some good 6.5" midbasses in at 80 or 100 Hz, your jaw is going to drop when you hear how much midbass you have.

Get the speakers in the car, and then use the P9 to dial it in. I'll bet my next paycheck you won't need to cross the midbass over at the same frequency as the subs. If you do, there's something wrong!

Scott

my head unit has an auto equalizer and sets the levels for each channel as well as phase

thanks for that geoff. i think i will go and have a play a bit later on now :D its sounding very very good, but i dont think i need the 8s aswell. they seem to put too much bass out even with 200rms each and the gains on near minimum.....

Jamie

Whoa dude! I cant believe how much difference that has made. Ive crossed the tweeters at about 5.2KHz, the mids are bandpassed from 140-5.2KHz, and the 12 plays from 60 down to 25. It sounds awesome. much better imaging and even louder and still clear now. i seemed to lose a little of the imaging and clarity, but that was because i had to reduce the gain on the tweeters before. Now i have turned them back up a fair bit and it is not at all harsh, much cleaner and clearer soudning.

Cheers people, especially Ballie! :D

JAmie

some good points but absoloubtedly true crossovers dont mean **** intil you find out what the speakers are actually doing and the only way to find that out is an r.t.a this will tell you exactly what is happening in your system and what you can do to improve things
using an r.t.a is an artform in itself there are very few people who know how to use these correctly

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Jamie.:
<strong>Cheers people, especially Ballie! :D

JAmie</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Im here to help :D
a five star member rating vote would be nice :D

Geoff.